1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to games, and, more particularly, to the structural apparatus or edifice used for a playing matrix in three-dimensional strategy games, and, in addition, to a particular class of strategy game, for two or more people, aimed towards aligning playing tokens on a playing field of up to three spatial dimensions, divided into playing zones of identical receptivity to all playing tokens, onto which players, according to a continuous and sequential order of adding three or more distinct kinds of playing tokens one-per-turn to the initially empty playing field, place these distinct kinds of tokens, each token, as evident by its shape, occupying either an entire playing zone or a distinct portion of a playing zone, onto particular playing zones, such that the kind of token added to the playing field is governed entirely by the given turn in a manner known and predictable to all players, and such that different kinds of playing tokens, whether belonging to the same player or to different players, may occupy the same playing zone provided that no two of these playing tokens occupy any same distinct portion of the given playing zone, and such that the playing zones comprising winning alignments all contain pieces of one player which occupy the same distinct portion of each playing zone therein.
2. Description of Prior Art
Numerous alignment games, or games with tic-tac-toe themes, have been devised in recent years. Many of these games have comprised mere expansions of conventional Tic Tac Toe onto a three dimensional playing matrix. The three dimensional game edifices conceived range from stackable trays as in U.S. Pat. No. 3,879,040 to Smith (1975), to stacked levels using various support mechanisms as in U.S. Pat. No. 5,195,750 to Courialis (1993), U.S. Pat. No. 5,085,440 to Van Dam (1992), U.S. Pat. No. 4,019,743 to Castanis (1977), and U.S. Pat. No. 5,249,805 to Neil et al (1993); U.S. Pat. No. 2,676,018 to D. Cornish et al (1947) comprises an edifice employing removable trays (and also removable posts in an alternate embodiment) inserted vertically into a support base.
The playing field trays (or posts) of both the Smith and Cornish et al patents, which must be removed for the placement of playing tokens onto the playing matrix, do not, by definition, allow for actual play within the three dimensions of the edifice; as a result, play is both cumbersome and prone to mishap, as well as to strategic errors engendered by the constant upsetting of the field of view.
Edifices, such as the patent to Van Dam, having multiple playing fields supported by a single column or post, are prone to wobbling from side to side, and to misalignment of the various playing fields, and, in general, achieve only moderate structural stability through painstaking assembly processes often involving screws, clamps, glue, or markedly tight tolerances of linkage which are prone to breakage of parts.
Single-column support edifices like that of Van Dam, as well as multiple column support edifices such as the patent to Castanis, further involve structural and visual interruption of the various playing fields, leaving the edifices prone to mishap caused by the manual application of playing tokens, as well as causing optical confusion to the players; this optical confusion persists even when the support columns are transparent, as light refraction off of the support columns may appear to define playing zones.
In addition, multiple column support edifices, like the patent to Neil et al, must rely heavily upon sophisticated or markedly precise means of linking the playing fields to the support columns, or else remain laterally unsound. The edifice of Neil et al, in addition, is prone to marked downward tilting on the sides of the various playing fields opposite the attachments to the supporting columns. Furthermore, the manufacture of all of the above edifices involves multiple processes or materials which increases costs.
Moreover, the method of play conceived of for these three dimensional edifices, except for the patent to Castanis which involved a Scrabble-like word game, comprised nothing more than an "X" and "O" tic-tac-toe approach, with players employing either uniform marbles or playing tokens. Winning alignments were fairly easy to see being constructed, and the game involved little strategy or imagination, and, even if viable, represented little more than uninspiring or dead-end games.
Several two dimensional alignment games have also been devised to add new flavor to the tic-tac-toe theme. U.S. Pat. No. 4,700,951 to Lachenmeier et al (1987) comprises a tic-tac-toe game played with a plurality of identically-valued tokens each possessing a distinct marker indicating the order in which it must first be placed on the playing field and thereafter moved upon the playing field. Although tokens are manipulated in a particular order, there is nothing about that order which restricts the capability of any distinctly marked token from forming an alignment with any of the other distinctly marked tokens; alignments may be formed with any combination of a player's tokens. Points are given when alignments are formed, a game ending in the accumulation of a certain number of points.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,239,230 to Shoptaugh (1980) comprises an alignment game involving differently shaped playing tokens capable of sharing playing zones within the two dimensional playing field. The various playing tokens are added to the playing field without any prescribed order, each player choosing on each turn which token he or she would like to add next to the playing field. As with the Lachenmeier game, players are able to move pieces on the playing field. Various arbitrary rules are established restricting the application of certain tokens to certain zones, such that, for example, two tokens of two different distinct shapes can share a zone only if the two tokens belong to different players. Winning alignments or configurations comprise a set of predetermined arbitrary arrangements of playing tokens, some involving all of the distinct types of playing pieces.
The present invention involves a game having different rules and characteristics of play from all those described above, and, further, having a three-dimensional playing field edifice structurally superior to all those described above. Details of the playing field edifice and of the game and its method of play are described in detail herein below. The details of the method of play will reveal the game of the present invention, in comparison to those described above, to be acting within a fundamentally larger, more challenging, and more focused strategic paradigm--a four dimensional paradigm.